Steve Flato dives into experimental music with new podcast

Composer and musician Steve Flato is hosting a new podcast that features in-depth interviews with artists in the experimental music community. It’s titled Signifying Something, and it’s usually updated every week with a new interview with someone in the experimental community, with episodes released so far including Lea Bertucci, G. Lucas Crain and David Kirby. Flato, who has produced podcasts for other people before launching this one, wanted to start the project because no podcast existed that quite captured this concept.

“I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if there was a show in this area of music with a kind of Marc Maron sensibility?” he says. “I had heard plenty of experimental music podcasts, but none that really focused on conversation.”

Given that the artists featured on the podcast are probably not widely known to people who aren’t already invested in the experimental scene, Flato says that he doesn’t want the conversations to get too esoteric. Instead, he’d like it to be an opportunity for listeners to learn about a musical world they might not already know.

“I want this to be an avenue for people who aren’t familiar with this music to discover something,” he says. “I don’t always get what an artist is trying to do. But sometimes when I get some background into what an artist is doing, I say, ‘Oh, now I understand how or why you did that.’”

The podcast isn’t strictly focused on local artists, though Flato says that he’ll be featuring plenty of San Diego musicians, including Scott Nielsen and Esteban Flores (Monochromacy). However, he also has a wishlist of sorts of artists he’d love to be able to talk to on Signifying Something.

“One would be Jim O’Rourke,” he says. “I love his work with Sonic Youth, Stereolab, Wilco. He kind of just does whatever he wants. I really admire that about him. That sort of bridge he created between pop and experimental music... that’s the kind of bridge I want this podcast to be.”